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1881 


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3  1153  DlEt3fll3D  E 


UDMEfi  BAfiBlDGE  UBSARY,  STORRS,  CT 

INTEMPERANCE 


AND 


CRIME 


.33 


By     NOAH     DAVIS, 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  OF  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  NEW  YOSK, 


NEW    YORK: 
National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication  Houses 

58     READE     STREET. 
1S81. 


nimmttF  UBRABYt  STORRS,  CI 


-^ 


/ 


COPYKICHT,   1879,   BY 

/.  N.  STEARNS,  PuBusiUNG  Acirvi. 


PREFACE 


The  following  paper  was  kindly  prepared  by  Chief 
Justice  Noah  Davis,  by  special  invitation,  for  a 
Parlor  Conference,  one  of  a  series  now  being-  held 
under  the  auspices  of  the  National  Temperance 
Society. 

It  was  read  by  the  author  on  the  evening  of  De- 
cember 17,  1878,  in  the  parlors  of  Hon.  Wm.  E. 
Dodge,  President  of  the  Society,  and  listened  to 
with  profound  attention  by  a  large  number  of 
guests,  including  many  distinguished  representa- 
tives of  the  professional  and  mercantile  life  of  the 
metropolis. 


INTEMPERANCE  AND  CRIME. 


I  AM  invited  to  speak  to-night  of  the  relations 
of  intemperance  to  crime.  The  theme  is  a  hack- 
neyed one,  as  old  as  alcohol,  and  one  can  not 
consider  it  without  a  sort  of  anger  at  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  men  of  past  generations,  who  have 
said  all  our  good  things  before  we  were  born. 
Little  is  left  to  us  but  to  array  their  testimonies 
and  confirm  them  by  our  own  experiences. 

No  one  doubts  the  existence  of  sin.  Through- 
out  Christendom  a  million  spires  rise  to  heaven 
in  proof  and  condemnation  of  it.  Yet  the  ugly 
fact  remains,  and  will,  until  the  devil  is  finally 
chained  to  make  room  for  the  millennium.  But 
this  is  no  argument  against  the  reiteration  of 
godly  preaching  and  Gospel  truth.  Said  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  to  a  lawyer  who  began  His 
argument  in  the  Garden  of  Eden :  ''  It  is  safe 
to  assume  that  the  court  knows  something." 
On  that  authority  I  shall  assume  that  this 
audience  knows,  by  hear  say,  of  the  existence 
of  crime  and  intemperance,  and  proceed  to 
speak  of  their  correlations.     It  is  not  quite  sus- 


6  Intemperance  aitd  Crime. 

ceptible  of  proof  that  the  relation  of  Intemper- 
ance to  crime  is  that  of  caicsa  cansans.  There 
are  other  causes,  such  as  hate,  avarice,  jealousy, 
lust,  and  revenge  ;  but  these  are  narrower  in 
their  circles  of  evil  ;  more  easily  repressed  by 
individuals  and  society  ;  more  subject  to  moral 
influences  and  restraints,  and  are  not  sanctioned 
by  law  nor  dealt  out  under  statutory  licenses. 

But  among  all  causes  of  crime,  intemperance 
stands  out  the  ''unapproachable  chief"  This 
fact  may  be  established  both  affirmatively  and 
negatively.'  It  is  proved  by  the  existence  of  in- 
temperance, and  equally  as  well  by  its  non-ex- 
istence ;  just  as  the  tides  of  the  ocean  may  be 
proved  by  the  flood  and  by  the  ebb.  First,  let 
us  briefly  consider  the  proof  by  existence.  The 
proposition  is,  that  whenever  and  wherever 
intemperance  is  most  prevalent,  crime  is  most 
abundant.  Crime  is  the  mercury  of  a  political 
and  moral  thermometer  which  intemperance 
and  its  opposite  affect  as  heat  and  cold.  This 
recognized  fact  has  created  an  elementary  prin- 
ciple in  the  criminal  common  law — that  drunk- 
enness is  no  excuse  for  crime. 

No  principle  is  better,  or  was  earlier,  settled, 
and  it  was  rested  upon  the  manifest  fact  that,  if 


Intemperance  and  Crime.  7 

allowed  as  an  excuse,  all  crime  would  prepare 
and  fortify  itself  by  intoxication.  Hence  courts, 
even  in  capital  cases,  were  compelled  to  treat 
drunkenness  as  an  aggravation  of  crime,  and  to 
hold  that  a  drunken  intent  was  equally  as  felo- 
nious as  a  sober  one.  In  common  acceptance, 
the  drunken  man  is  temporarily  insane.  It  is 
fortunate  that  in  a  country  where  making  drunk 
was  a  business  licensed  by  law  as  a  source  of 
governmental  revenue  the  wisdom  of  judges 
discarded  popular  notions,  and  the  natural  infer- 
ence from  that  kind  of  legislation,  and  gave  us 
principles  and  rules  by  inheritance  which  I  fear 
we  would  not  have  had  the  virtue  to  originate. 
Intoxicating  drinks  enable  men  to  commit  crimes 
by  firing  the  passions  and  quenching  the  con- 
science. Burke,  the  Irish  murderer,  whose 
horrible    mode    of  committino-    his    crimes   has 

o 

taken  his  own  name,  in  his  confession  states 
that  only  once  did  he  feel  any  restraint  of  con- 
science. That  was  when  he  was  about  to  kill 
;  an  infant  child.  The  babe  looked  up  and  smiled 
'in  his  face,  ''but,"  said  he,  '^  I  drank  a  large 
glass  of  brandy,  and  then  I  had  no  remorse." 
His  case  is  one  of  thousands.  Many  times  in 
my  own  experience  have  young  men  looked  up 


8  Intempera7ice  ajid  Crime. 

to  me,  when  asked  what  they  had  to  say  why 
the  sentence  of  the  law  should  not  be  pro- 
nounced, and  falteringly  said :  ''I  was  drunk; 
I  would  not  and  could  not  have  done  it  had  I 
not  been  drunk." 

That  habits  of  intemperance  are  the  chief 
cause  of  crime  is  the  testimony  of  all  judges  of 
large  experience.  More  than  two  hundred 
years  ago  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  then  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  England,  to  whom  as  a  writer  and  judge 
we  are  greatly  indebted  for  our  own  criminal 
law,  speaking  on  this  subject,  said:  "The 
places  of  judicature  I  have  long  held  in  this 
kingdom,  have  given  me  an  opportunity  to  ob- 
serve the  oriorinal  cause  of  most  of  the  enormi- 
ties  that  have  been  committed  for  the  space  of 
nearly  twenty  years,  and  by  due  observation  I 
have  found  that  if  the  murders  and  manslaugh- 
ters, the  burglaries  and  robberies,  the  riots  and 
tumoits,  the  adulteries,  fornications,  rapes,  and 
other  enormities  that  have  happened  in  that 
time  were  divided  into  ^\g.  parts,  four  of  them 
ha^e  been  the  issue  and  product  of  excessive 
drinking — of  tavern  and  ale-house  drinking." 
Leaping  over  two  hundred  years  of  English 
history  and  jurisprudence,  I  call  one  other  emi- 


Intemperance  and  Crime.  9 

nent  judge  of  great  experience  to  testify.     Lord 
Chief- Baron  Kelly,  perhaps  the  oldest  judge  now 
on  the  English  bench,  says  in  a  letter  to  the  Arch- 
deacon of  Canterbury:  ''  Two-thirds  of  the  crimes 
which   come   before   the  courts   of  law  of  this 
country  are  occasioned  chiefly  by  intemperance." 
Not  less   explicit  is  the   testimony  of  those 
whose  official  duties  have  brought  them  in  con- 
tact with  convicted  criminals.     Speaking  of  in- 
temperance, the  Chaplain  of  the  Preston  House 
of   Correction   said:    ''Nine-tenths   of  the  En- 
glish crime  requiring  to  be  dealt  with  by  law 
arises    from    the    English    sin,  which    the    law 
scarcely  discourages."     And  the  late  inspector 
of  English  prisons  says  :  "  I  am  within  the  truth 
when  I  state  that  in  four  cases  out  of  five,  when 
an    offense    has    been    committed,    intoxicating 
drink  has  been  one  of  the  causes."     The  rea- 
son for  this   is  not  found  in  English  skies.     A 
committee   of  the  House  of  Commons  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada,  reporting  in   1875,  state 
that  ''out  of  28,289   commitments   to  the  jails 
of  the  provinces  of  Ontario  and  Quebec,  dur- 
ing the  three  previous  years,  21,236  were  com- 
mitted either  for  drunkenness  or  for  crimes  per- 
petrated under  the  influence  of  drink." 


lO  I7ite7nperancc  and  Crime. 

This  is  not  a  mere  provincial  imitation  of  the 
fashions  of  the  mother  country ;  for,  alas !  in 
our  own  land,  under  our  beloved  republican  in- 
stitutions, the  same  startling  facts  exist.  Mas- 
sachusetts, great  keeper  of  Plymouth  Rock  and 
of  the  virtues  that  landed  there,  tells  the  same 
tale.  The  report  of  her  State  Board  of  Chari- 
ties for  1869  says:  "The  proportion  of  crime 
traceable  to  this  great  vice  must  be  set  down,- 
as  heretofore,  at  not  less  than  four-fifths,"  and 
her  inspectors  of  State  prisons  in  1868  gave 
the  same  proportion.  Coming  closer  home,  we 
have  the  testimony  of  our  Board  of  Police  Jus- 
tices in  their  report  of  1874:  "We  are  fully 
satisfied,"  say  they,  "  that  intoxication  is  the  one 
ereat  leadine"  cause  that  renders  the  existence 
of  our  poHce  courts  ncccssar)-." 

Of  seventeen  cases  of  murder,  examined  sep- 
arately by  Dr.  Harris,  corresponding  secretary 
of  the  Prison  Association,  fourteen  were  insti- 
gated by  intoxicating  drinks.  The  line  of  wit- 
nesses miofht  stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom. 
The  case  would  only  be  a  little  stronger.  It  is 
established  beyond  argument  by  official  statis- 
tics, by  the  experience  of  courts,  and  by  the 
observation  of  enlightened  philanthropists,  that 


I7itempera7tce  and  Crime,  ii 

the  prevalence  of  intemperance  in  every  coun- 
try is  the  standard  by  which  its  crimes  may  be 
measured.  Whatever  man  or  woman  can  do 
that  checks  intemperance,  diminishes  crime, 
lessens  vice  and  misery,  and  promotes  virtue 
and  happiness.  Whatever  man  or  woman  does 
do  that  spreads  intemperance,  increases  crime, 
promotes  vice  and  misery,  and  lessens  virtue 
and  happiness.  The  State  has  no  soul  to  damn. 
The  corporation  of  New  York  will  never  stand 
at  the  great  judgment  bar.  The  official  who 
goes  in  to-day  and  out  to-morrow  will  carry  his 
own  load  of  vice  or  meed  of  virtue ;  but  neither 
State  nor  municipality  will  ever  rise  to  the  sim- 
plest of  all  duties — the  prevention  of  crime  and 
misery  at  the  fountain-head — until  the  people 
are  brought  by  individual  effort  to  realize  the 
necessity  of  that  heroism. 

The  relation  of  intemperance  to  crime  is  also 
strikingly  shown  by  the  diminution  of  the  latter 
wherever  the  former  is  wholly  or  partially  sup- 
pressed. 

Whether  the  suppression  be  the  result  of  pro- 
hibitory laws,  or  of  the  efforts  of  the  advocates 
of  temperance,  makes  no  difference  with  the 
general  truth  of  the  proposition.     Taken  in  all 


12  Intempermice  a7id  Crime, 

its  aspects,  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  tem- 
perance reformation  of  any  age  was  that  led  by 
Father  Mathew  in  Ireland.  I  can  not  speak 
his  name  without  emotions  of  deepest  venera- 
tion. Worthier  he  than  all  others  to  be  called 
the  patron  saint  of  Ireland.  Before  the  close 
of  October,  1838,  Father  Mathew  had  enrolled 
more  than  250,000  names  on  his  pledges  of 
total  abstinence.  Well,  names  are  nothing. 
Things  are  much.  Lord  Morpeth,  when  Sec- 
retary for  Ireland,  in  an  address  on  the  condi- 
tion of  Ireland,  gav^e  these  statistics.  Of  cases 
of  murder,  attempts  at  murder,  offenses  against 
the  person,  aggravated  assaults,  and  cutting 
and  maiming — there  were,  he  says,  in  1S37, 
12,096;    1838,  11,058;    1839,  1,097;  1S40,  173. 

Between  1838  and  1840  the  consumption  of 
spirits  in  Ireland  had  fallen  off  5,000,000  gal- 
lons ;  the  public-houses  where  liquors  were  re- 
tailed had  lessened  by  237  in  the  city  of  Dub- 
lin alone  ;  the  persons  imprisoned  in  the  Bride- 
well (the  principal  city  prison),  had  fallen  in  a 
single  year  from  136- to  23,  and  more  than  100 
cells  in  the  Bridewell  being  empty,  the  Smith- 
field  prison  was  actually  closed. 

To  what  can  be  attributed  this  amazing  array 


Intemperance  and  Crime.  13 

of  facts  and  figures  ?  Not  to  war,  nor  to  pesti- 
lence, nor  to  famine,  for  these  are,  unhappily, 
the  beeetters  of  crime.  Tlot  to  a  sterner  execu- 
tion  of  the  laws,  nor  to  greater  severity  of  pun- 
ishments, for  these  always  relax  as  crime  dimin- 
ishes. Not  to  changes  in  the  excise  laws  of 
the  country,  for  they,  for  the  most  part,  remain- 
ed intact.  No,  it  must  stand  as  an  historic 
truth  that  one  bold,  humane  man,  planting  him- 
self en  the  rock  of  temperance,  and  supple- 
"-'^nting  his  priestly  power  with  Christian  char- 
ity and  love,  by  his  burning  zeal  and  eloquence 
awoke  all  the  emotional  nature  of  his  volatile 
race,  and  built  up  a  barrier  of  voluntary  pledges 
between  them  and  the  great  curse  of  their  coun- 
try. 

Something  analogous  is  even  now  in  prog- 
ress in  our  city.  Analogous  in  that  its  leader 
and  advocate  is  an  Irishman  full  of  the  enthusi- 
astic eloquence  of  the  Irish  nature  ;  in  that  its 
motive  power  is  humanity  and  love  ;  in  that  its 
chief  object  is  the  rescue  of  the  fallen  victims  of 
drink  ;  in  that  it  seeks  to  reach  the  intellect 
through  the  avenues  of  the  heart,  by  appeals  to 
man's  better  nature  ;    and    God  grant  that  it 


14  Intemperance  and  Crime. 

mav  be  analoeous  also   in  the  mlo-ht  of  its  ex- 
tent  and  influence  ! 

I  have  selected  the  one  strong  example  of 
the  repression  of  crime  by  the  successful  eftbrts 
of  the  friends  of  temperance  not  because  it 
stands  alone,  but  because  time  will  not  permit 
the  detail  of  more.  I  feel  bound  to  add,  how- 
ever, that  in  my  judgment  the  efforts  of  tem- 
perance organizations  in  our  country,  whatever 
we  may  think  of  the  wisdom  or  discretion  of 
some  of  their  modes  of  action,  have  done  more 
to  prevent  crime  by  spreading  and  maintaining 
temperance,  especially  among  our  rural  popula- 
tions, than  all  our  numerous  and  complicated 
systems  of  police.  . 

The  relation  of  intemperance  to  crime  is  also 
plainly  manifest  where  drunkenness  is  repressed 
by  partial  or  complete  prohibition.  The  cases 
of  towns  and  villages  where,  by  the  arrange- 
ments of  their  founders,  no  liquors  or  intoxicat- 
ing drinks  have  ever  been  allowed  to  be  sold, 
furnish  strong  evidence.  Vineland,  with  its 
10,000  people,  without  a  grog-shop,  and  with  a 
police  force  of  one  constable,  who  is  also  over- 
seer of  the  poor  (with  a  salary  for  both  offices 


Inte^npcrance  and  Crime.  15 

of  $75),  reports  in  some  years  a  single  crime, 
and  a  poor-rate  swelling  to  the  aggregate  of 
$4  a  year.  Greeley,  in  Colorado,  is  another 
town  of  3,000  people,  and  no  liquor-shop.  It 
uses  and  needs  no  police  force,  and  in  two  years 
and  a  half  $7  only  was  called  out  of  its  poor- 
fund.  Bavaria,  Illinois,  a  town  of  the  same 
population,  with  absolute  prohibition,  was  with- 
out a  drunkard,  without  a  pauper,  and  without 
a  crime.  A  small  town  in  Western  New  York 
was  founded  some  years  ago  by  a  gentleman 
who  made  it  a  condition  in  all  his  title-deeds 
that  if  liquors  were  sold,  the  land  should  revert 
to  him.  The  condition  became  the  subject  of 
litigation  in  our  courts,  and  was  held  to  be  valid 
and  enforceable  by  ejectment. 

I  well  recollect  when  that  case  was  argued 
before  the  General  Term,  of  which  I  was  then 
a  member,  that  a  very  distinguished  lawyer  and 
politician,  not  long  since  the  president  of  the 
State  Convention  of  his  party,  came  up  to  the 
bench  after  the  argument,  and  said  to  me: 
*'  Judge,  if  I  had  been  arguing  that  case  I 
should  have  made  a  stronger  constitutional  ob- 
jection." ''  Well,"  said  I,  ''  what  objection 
would  you  have  made  ?  "     ''  Why,"  he  replied, 


l6  Inte7npera7ice  and  Crime. 

*'  that  the  provision  is  plainly  a  violation  of  the 
Constitution,  inasmuch  as  it  prevented  free 
speech."  ''  How  so  ?  "  I  asked.  ''  Why,  don't 
you  see,"  said  he,  ''that  it  would  be  utterly  im- 
possible ever  to  hold  a  political  meeting  of  my 
party  there  ?  "  That  village  has  none  of  the  in- 
cidents of  intemperance  ;  and  the  same  thing  is 
true  of  numerous  other  places  whose  founders 
have  established  prohibition. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  are  not  fair  exam- 
ples, because  the  inhabitants  were  all  teetotal- 
ers or  temperance  men.  They  are  less  conclu- 
sive, perhaps,  but  they  certainly  show  the  value 
of  the  absence  of  temptation.  How  is  it,  then, 
where  prohibition  exists  by  absolute  law  ?  I 
will  not  take  Maine,  the  hackneyed  theme  of  so 
many  contradictions,  further  than  to  state  that 
in  1 870  her  convictions  for  crime  under  prohibi- 
tion were  only  431,  or  one  in  every  1,689,  while 
in  our  State  (exclusive  of  this  city),  under  license, 
the  convictions  were  5,473,  or  one  in  every  620 
souls.  Can  it  be  that  the  rural  population  of 
New  York  is  so  much  more  addicted  to  crime 
than  the  people  of  Maine  ? 

But  take  Connecticut — commonly  called  "  the 
land  of  steady  habits."      Under  the  prohibition 


Intemperance  and  Crime.  1 7 

law  of  1854,  crime  is  shown  to  have  diminished 
75  per  cent.  On  the  restoration  of  hcense  in 
1873,  crime  increased  50  per  cent,  in  a  single 
year,  and  in  two  years  in  Hartford,  according  to 
official  returns  presented  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Walker, 
crime  increased  in  that  city  400  per  cent.  In 
New  London  the  prison  was  empty,  and  the 
jailer  out  of  business  for  awhile  after  prohibi- 
tion went  into  effect.  Connecticut  has  now  a 
local  option  act.  Under  it  New  London  lately 
voted  for  no  license. 

I  found  in  the  New  York  Herald,  a  few 
mornings  ago,  a  letter  from  New  London  la- 
menting at  great  .length  the  present  suffermgs 
of  thirsty  souls  in  that  city.  The  concluding 
portions  of  the  letter  are  so  naive  and  so  much 
to  my  purpose  that  you  will  pardon  me  for 
reading  them : 

"  There  are,  of  course,  two  sides  to  the  ques- 
tion, and  one  of  them  is  perhaps  exhibited  in 
the  records  of  the  police  of  this  town  for  the 
month  during  which  the  prohibitory  law  has 
been  in  operation.  The  '  force '  consists  of  a 
captain,  a  sergeant,  and  five  patrolmen.  The 
captain  states  that  the  number  of  arrests  for  m- 
toxication  heretofore  averaged  between  thirty- 


1 8  Intemperance  mid  Crime. 

five  and  fifty  per  month.  Seven  was  the  num- 
ber for  November — in  fact,  it  was  only  six,  as 
one  of  them  got  tipsy  on  the  night  before  the 
law  went  into  operation,  but  was  not  arrested 
until  the  following  day.  The  whole  number  of 
arrests  on  all  charges  each  month  is  about  lOO, 
and  the  number  of  persons  locked  up  on  other 
charges  than  drunkenness  shows  a  correspond- 
ing decrease,  because  many  crimes  grow  out 
of  that. 

"Another  point  is  that  the  class  of  persons 
most  injured  by  drinking  find  it  impossible  to 
obtain  liquor.  The  poor  wretch  who  on  Satur- 
day night  would  get  drunk  and  squander  his 
week's  earnings  can  find  no  one  to  sell  him  rum, 
because  no  sooner  does  he  venture  in  the  streets 
in  a  drunken  condition  than  he  is  arrested  and 
forced  to  testify  against  those  who  sold  him  the 
liquor.  That  class  of  excessive  drinkers  is  thus 
benefited  by  the  law,  and  it  is  to  bring  this  about 
that  the  moderate  drinkers  suffer  annoyance 
and  strangers  total  deprivation. 

"Again,  the  houses  where  gambling  and 
other  vices  flourish  complain  of  the  new  law. 
It  seems  odd  at  the  first  blush  that  they  should 
be  afraid  to  break  one  law   in  establishments 


Intemperance  and  Crime.  19 

which  depend  for  their  existence  upon  the  in- 
fringement of  another,  but  it  will  be  seen  that 
if  their  customers  become  intoxicated  they  would 
be  the  means  of  calling  attention  to  the  places 
where  the  liquor  was  obtained,  and  that  would 
lead  to  the  latter  being  closed.  Cider  is  about 
the  only  drink  to  be  found  in  such  places,  and 
as  a  consequence  they  are  less  frequented  than 
formerly.  -There  is  nothing  to  over-stimulate 
the  nerves  or  fire  the  blood  in  a  glass  of  acrid 
New  England  apple-juice — quite  the  contrary, 
indeed,  is  its  effect.  New  Haven  has  voted  to 
abolish  the  licensing  of  the  liquor-traffic  by  a 
majority  of  one  thousand,  and  probably  the 
same  grave  and  funny  aspects  of  the  case  will 
be  found  there." 

But  we  have  had  a  striking  example  in  our 
own  city.  The  Metropolitan  Excise  Law  of 
1866  was  absolutely  prohibitory  on  Sundays. 
Prior  to  that  law  there  had  been  no  material 
difference  in  the  number  of  arrests  made  on  that 
day  and  on  other  days  of  the  week.  Taking 
Tuesdays  for  comparison,  there  were  from 
January  i,  1867,  to  October  i,  1868,  of  Tues- 
day arrests  11,034,  of  Sunday  arrests  5,263, 
showing  a  difference  of  5,771.     A  larger  differ- 


20  Intemperance  and  Crime. 

ence  probably  prevails  under  our  present  law, 
and  the  older  citizens  talk  of  the  quiet  and  good 
order  that  now  exist  on  Sundays,  as  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  condition  of  things  when  liquors 
were  freely  sold  on  the  Sabbath. 

On  the  day  of  our  annual  elections  a  statute 
draws  around  each  polling-place  a  circle  of 
absolute  prohibition,  within  which  no  intoxicat- 
ing drinks  may  be  sold  or  given.  Contrasted 
with  former  days,  who  fails  to  recognize  the 
chanee  from  excitement,  disorder,  and  crime  to 
almost  universal  quietude  and  peace  ?  And 
who  does  not  see  that  the  measure  of  peace  de-f 
pends  upon  the  vigilance  with  which  the  police 
enforce  the  statute  ?  During  the  spasmodic 
efforts  of  the  police  authorities  of  this  cit)-  about 
one  year  ago  to  enforce  the  Excise  law,  one  of 
the  Police  Commissioners  told  me  that  in  his 
opinion  arrests  for  crime  (other  than  for  breaches 
of  the  Excise  laws)  had  fallen  off  between  thirty 
and  forty  per  cent.  Yet  there  was  no  general 
and  complete  enforcement  of  the  law.  This 
fact  speaks  volumes  for  what  might  be  accom- 
plished in  New  York. 

But  I  am  not  here  to  argue  for  prohibition. 
My  sole  purpose  is  to  establish  that  intemper- 


Intemperance  and  Criine,  21 

ance  is  an  evil  factor  in  crime  by  showing  that 
whatever  limits  or  suppresses  the  one,  dimin- 
ishes the  other  in  a  ratio  almost  mathematically 
certain.  Whether  judging  from  the  declared 
judical  experience  of  others,  or  from  my  own,  or 
from  carefully  collected  statistics  running  through 
many  series  of  years,  I  believe  it  entirely  safe 
to  say  that  one-half  of  all  the  crime  of  this  coun- 
try and  of  Great  Britain  is  caused  by  the  in-  * 
temperate  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  ;  and  that 
of  the  crimes  involving  personal  violence,  cer- 
tainly three-fourths  are  chargeable  to  the  same 

cause. 

The  practical  question  is  :   What  can  be  done 

about  it  ? 

If  intemperance  were  a  new  evil,  coming  in 
upon  us  for  the  first  time  like  a  pestilence  from 
some  foreign  shore,  laden  with  its  awful  burden 
of  disease,  pauperism,  and  crime,  with  what 
horror  would  the  nation  contemplate  its  mon- 
strous approach.  What  severity  of  laws,  what 
stringencies  of  quarantine,  what  activities  of  re- 
sistance would  be  suddenly  aroused.  But, 
alas  !  it  is  no  new  evil.  It  surrounds  us  like  an 
atmosphere,  as  it  has  our  fathers  through  count- 
less   generations.     It    perverts  judgments,    it 


22  Intemperance  and  Crime. 

poisons  habits,  it  sways  passions,  it  taints 
churches,  and  sears  consciences.  It  seizes  the 
enginery  of  our  legislation,  and  by  it  creates  a 
moral  phenomenon  of  perpetual  motion,  which 
nature  denies  to  physics ;  for  it  licenses  and 
empowers  itself  to  beget  in  endless  rounds  the 
wrongs,  vices,  and  crimes  which  society  is  organ- 
ized to  prevent ;  and,  worst  of  all  for  our  coun- 
'try,  it  encoils  parties  like  the  serpents  of  Lao- 
coon,  and  crushes  in  its  folds  the  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism and  virtue. 

Is  the  case,  then,  utterly  hopeless?  No  ; 
not  while  the  spirit  of  Christ  has  a  tabernacle 
on  earth. 

The  duties  of  the  present  hour  lie  immedi- 
ately before  us  : 

First. — To  see  to  it  that  our  present  excise 
laws  take  no  step  backward.  The  outcry  that 
the  present  laws  must  be  changed  because  they 
can  not  be  enforced  is  insidious  and  false.  They 
can  be  enforced.  The  fault  is  not  in  them,  but 
jn  faithless  officials,  who  in  cowardice  dare  not 
or  in  treachery  will  not  obey  the  plain  letter 
and  spirit  of  their  injunctions.  If  the  present 
laws  were  decently  enforced,  there  would  not 
be  to-day  in  the  city  of  New  York  one  place 


Intemperance  and  Crime,  23 

where  liquors  could  be  sjld  by  the  drink  which 
is  not  in  fact  a  public  inn,  necessary  for  the 
actual  accommodation  of  travelers,  and  having 
all  the  conveniences  essential  to  such  accommo- 
dation, and  kept  by  a  person  morally  fit  to  be 
trusted  with  the  responsibilities  which  the  law 
devolves  upon  inn-keepers  and  exacts  from  them 
as  licensed  venders  of  intoxicating  drinks. 

Second. — It  is  our  duty  to  stand  by  those  who 
seek  to  enforce  the  law  and  compel  official 
obedience  to  its  provisions.  Dr.  Crosby's 
organization  commands  respect  and  deserves 
support.  It  asks  nothing  of  its  enemies  but 
obedience  to  the  law,  and  nothing  of  its  friends 
but  to  aid  it  in  compelling  such  obedience. 

Third. — Since  all  the  courts  have  given  their 
final  sanction  to  the  act  for  the  protection  of 
women  and  childhood  from  the  injuries  drunken- 
ness visits  upon  innocence,  there  is  no  excuse 
for  us  if  we  do  not  see  that  that  law  is  put  in 
vigorous  operation.  If  enforced,  it  will  give 
many  a  wife  a  sober  husband  and  many  a  child 
a  sober  father,  for  the  fear  of  the  law  will  be  the 
beginning  of  wisdom  to  many  a  drunkard- 
maker. 

Lastly. — We  ought  to  stand  by  and  encourage 


^-;<2j  1Xxh5 


24  Intemperance  and  Crime. 

the  reform  that  is  reaching  the  hand  of  brother- 
hood and  love  to  the  thousands  of  drinking  men 
and  women  in  our  city.  Francis  Murphy  should 
be  armed  with  our  sympathy,  our  prayers,  and 
our  means  to  aid  his  noble  work ;  and,  most  of 
all,  the  victims  of  rum  who  are  bravely  striving 
with  his  aid  to  reclaim  themselves  should  be 
helped  and  encouraged  in  their  efforts,  not  by 
alms  that  demoralize  and  debase,  but  by  em- 
ployment that  will  encourage  self-reliance  and 
strengthen  the  hopes  of  permanent  reform. 
What  is  to  hinder  an  organization  for  such  a 
purpose,  with  good  men  and  capital  enough  to 
make  it  effective  !  A  hundred  thousand  dollars 
devoted  to  that  end  would  be  returned  to  the 
community  an  hundredfold  in  saved  taxes,  in- 
creased industries,  and,  above  all,  in  men, 
women,  and  children  rescued  from  the  miseries, 
vices,  and  crimes  of  drunkenness. 


